Immigration: What’s on the Horizon?

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There’s a glimmer of hope for undocumented people with new legislation in Congress that would provide protection for about two million people who’ve called the United States home for decades. Here’s what’s happening.

Three members of the House of Representatives, including California’s own Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles), introduced the Dream and Promise Act on March 12th. This legislation would grant legal immigration status, including a path to citizenship, for two groups of people: Dreamers — undocumented people who were brought into the United States as children — and certain people who cannot return to their home countries because of crises.

Many Dreamers who would qualify under this bill are currently in a state of legal limbo because of the Federal Administration’s efforts to shut down DACA, the program that protects Dreamers from deportation. This bill, if enacted, would give them and other young immigrants full legal status, once and for all.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and DED (Deferred Enforced Departure) are programs that allow immigrants to stay in the United States because their home countries either have an ongoing crisis (a natural disaster, for example) or are still experiencing the effects of a previous crisis. These programs are under attack from the Federal Administration, putting about 400,000 people from 13 countries at risk of being deported to countries they barely know, if at all, since some arrived here as infants and toddlers.